The Wrong Week To Quit Smoking
by TheUmbrellaSeller
Summary: Twenty years ago during the Apocal-oops-never-mind-we'll-come-back-later, a flaming Bentley flew over the heads of several officers from the Met, who were manning a rather ineffective roadblock at the time. One of those officers was a young Greg Lestrade.


_If there is a Hell_, thought Greg Lestrade, _it probably looks like the M25._

He leant against one of the patrol cars that stretched in a line, nose to bumper, across the motorway. As barricades went, it was probably a pretty good one. If he squinted at the horizon, he could just make out another, roughly a mile away, stretching across the road as a second line of defence. London was effectively cut off. The higher ups really, _really_ didn't want anyone getting through.

And he could understand why. Despite the lashing wind and rain, the flyover was littered with still-burning wreckage—in the hours before they'd closed the road the M25 had been a seething mass of metal and flame. It was like the entire motorway had been transformed into a meat-grinder. They'd had over a hundred people hospitalised and the death toll had just reached twenty. Burnt-out shells of cars were abandoned periodically every few yards. It looked like a war zone.

Greg shivered slightly, turning his collar up against the gale. The worst part was the state of the M25 wasn't even the strangest thing the Met had had to deal with over the last few days. There'd been the mass escape at London Zoo. The swarm of locusts in Cheapside. The pit that opened in the middle of St. James' Park (though they'd managed to get that cordoned off now, and any reports that it was bottomless were probably exaggerated). Reports were flying in from all over London, too many for the force to realistically cope with; six bedraggled-looking figures had hauled themselves out of the Thames yesterday claiming to be mermaids, and only a few hours ago a woman had phoned 999 saying she saw the Devil himself stumbling out of a burning bookshop.

It was mental, but from what Greg could gather, the rest of England, if not the world, was coping with much worse. He'd had barely any time to catch the news recently but when he had, none of it had been good news. Missing nuclear reactors, giant squid, something about the lost city of Atlantis (he'd had to run into work, so he'd missed the end of that one) and Tibetans popping up everywhere.

Greg had given up trying to figure out what was going on. That puzzle was for brighter minds than his, and he didn't envy their job. He was just one man on the ground, and pretty wet behind the ears to boot. For now he was just keeping his nose to the grindstone and dealing with each problem as it came along. Their resources were stretched thin, painfully thin, and they simply couldn't help everyone.

_Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking_, he thought, and grimaced.

"You the new lad?"

Greg bristled, but tried not to let his irritation show. Three months he'd been on the job now. Three months and still hardly anyone called him by his name. He sighed. Christ, he needed a cigarette. "It's Greg," he said wearily. "Greg Lestrade."

He turned to look at the man who addressed him and stifled a groan. He'd maybe only been working here for three months, but he'd kept his head down and his eyes open, and he'd gotten good at figuring out who to trust and who to avoid. He knew this copper's type instantly—everything from the too-clean uniform to the smarmy moustache that lurked on his upper lip screamed twat. He even had the cheek to cower under an umbrella.

The man grinned. "James Pratt," he said, displaying a whitened row of rat-like teeth. He settled himself against the patrol car beside Greg., who noticed that the shelter of the umbrella was not extended towards him. "How long you been on the job, lad? A week?"

"Three months," said Greg stiffly, staring resolutely into the distance. Pratt didn't seem to notice the gently rebuff, though, as he gave a low whistle.

"Ooh, three months, eh? Jesus, I remember when I was that green around the gills." He brayed laughter. "Six years I've been here now, protecting the good people of London. I've seen things you wouldn't believe, sonny."

"Oh yeah?" said Greg blandly.

"Oh yeah," said Pratt, grinning widely. "The kind of stuff that'll give you nightmares. It's a dangerous job. But you know, someone's got to do it." He puffed his chest out importantly. Greg felt for his cigarettes, stroking the packet gently for reassurance. "It's not without its perks, though, if you know how to work the system." To Greg's disgust, Pratt winked. "Stick with me, sonny. I'll show you the ropes."

Greg gave a non-committal grunt. He didn't doubt it. He also didn't doubt that his first assessment of Pratt was correct; he was exactly the kind of copper Greg loathed. The kind who was a little too forceful when quieting drunks, who'd chuck kids in the cells without so much as a warning, who'd have his hand out at any given opportunity.

_If I ever get any higher up in this bloody force_, Greg swore to himself, _the first thing I'll do is get rid of arseholes like him. _

Aloud he said, "Cheers, mate."

There came a roar of laughter from a group of officers to Greg's left—they were all gathered around the open door of one of the patrol cars and craning their necks inside. Greg could hear the quiet crackle of a radio as he and Pratt approached.

"What's all this, then?" asked Pratt, and Greg winced.

One of the men, a man with sandy hair and buck teeth whom Greg vaguely recognised as Dobbs, grinned up at them.

"Aww, bad luck, mate, you just missed it," he said, nodding towards the radio.

Greg frowned. "Missed what?"

"The nutter we just had on the radio. One of our lads from up near Birmingham."

"What'd he say?"

"He says he's driving down the M6 on his bike, right, spots a Ford Focus speeding. So he pulls him over, smooth as you like, looks in the driver's seat, and it's a _fucking octopus_."

"You what?" asked Greg, as the other policemen collapsed into laughter again.

"He's got his pad and paper out and everything, and it was a fucking octopus! Driving the car!" Dobbs was obviously delighted, and obviously didn't believe a word of it.

"Only in Birmingham, eh?" said one officer.

Greg tried to shut his ears against Pratt's horsey laughter and chuckled half-heartedly. Dobbs noticed. "Oi, Lestrade. What's crawled up your arse and died?" he asked, his smile faltering slightly.

Greg forced a grin and shrugged. "Well, you never know," he said. "We've seen some funny things these last few days."

Pratt snorted. "Oh, come off it," he said, clapping Greg hard on the back. "It's just some poor sod who couldn't hack the job anymore and started seeing things. Nervous breakdown or what have you. Stress of the job, you know."

"And all the other accounts we've heard?"

"Mass hysteria," said Pratt promptly, and the men around him nodded. "Nothing to worry about, we'll get to the bottom of it, son. Don't you worry."

"But-"

"Why're you so worried?" asked Pratt, beady eyes looking him over. His moustache twitched. "You haven't seen any speeding octopuses lately, have you?"

A low chuckle spread round the other officers. Greg took some deep, calming breaths. _The second thing I'll do,_ he told himself, _is hire someone who knows how to use plurals properly. _He glanced around at the others, lounging against the car as if there was nothing wrong. _And who has the brains to know when something's Not Right. God knows we need a fresh eye around here._

"Oi, leave 'im alone," called another officer to Greg's left. He smiled at him kindly. "Cheer up, son," he said. "It's not the end of the world."

Greg decided that although the man's intentions were for the best, the next person to call him "son" was going to be picking their teeth up off the M25. But before he could say any of this aloud, the radio started to crackle again.

"Oh, what is it this time?" sighed Dobbs, making a grab for the radio.

There was a whine of feedback, and the men all drew back, grumbling, as Dobbs fiddled with the dial. "Hello?" he said, "Hello?"

There was some more crackling, static, and then a sudden, incongruously loud "_FUCK!"_

"Hello? Come in?" Instead of an answer, a shrill scream tore from the radio in a burst of white noise. "Shit!" said Dobbs desperately. He was wrenching at the dial now, and forgetting what he was supposed to say in his panic. "Erm… breaker, breaker… come in… mate?"

The static drowned out most of the speech from the other team, and the wind and rain the rest. Still, over the din they managed to make out:

"…_shit…fuck…shitting Christ…car…fuck… fireball… bloody… ploughed straight through…wanker…"_

Greg turned around. He no longer had to squint to see the other barricade. The neat white line of cars had been replaced by a sheet of flame that arced right across the road, against which a few frantic shadows were thrown into sharp relief.

"Holy…" whispered someone.

Hurtling towards the barricade at what looked like a hundred miles an hour was what could only be described as a small comet. For a moment it looked as though it would crash straight into the assembled coppers and their cars—officers either side of Greg broke ranks and scrambled away, screaming—but then with an almighty groan it wrenched itself into the air with a scream of brakes and a sickening crunch of metal. Greg watched, stunned, as the flaming wreck sailed over his head, showering debris—if he squinted, he could just make out, through the flames, the curves of what looked to be a classic car, and in the driver's seat…

Greg blinked. He had to be hallucinating, because if he wasn't, he'd just seen a pale, skinny man in a tattered suit and cracked sunglasses, hair aflame, hunched over the wheel and grinning like a demon.

And over the sounds of the car's agony, over the crackle of flames and the wheeze of exhaust and a hissing sound that Greg took to be a stream of curses coming from the driver, he'd heard the unmistakeable wail of Freddy Mercury.

"_Who waaaaaants to liiiiiivvve fooooreeverrrrrr…"_

And that couldn't possibly be right.

The car's wheels (or what remained of them) took far longer than they should have to touch back to tarmac, and by the time the strains of Queen had faded away into the distance Greg's fellow officers were regrouping.

Pratt scrambled out from behind a patrol car (where he'd leapt as soon as he saw the car) and scrambled to his feet. He didn't look quite so smug now, and his self-satisfied smirk was gone. His face was drenched with sweat, his twatty little moustache was singed, and he stared at Greg with wide eyes.

"What… what the _fuck _was that?" he shrieked. Spittle flew everywhere.

Greg blinked. "What was what?" he asked blandly.

"That… that fucking… thing!" Pratt's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his sockets. "It went—right over—it flew- on fire!"

Greg tried his best to look concerned. "Are you sure you're not seeing things, _son_?" he asked.

"Don't fuck with me! _You saw it_!"

"Saw what?" Pratt's mouth fell open, and he spluttered, apoplectic with rage. Greg put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's alright," he said kindly. "It happens to the best of us. Stress of the job, you know." He clapped Pratt on the back and felt around in his jacket for his cigarettes. "Mass hysteria."

Pratt gave a strangled cry. His face turned an alarming shade of puce. Then he fainted.

Still looking for his cigarettes, Greg barely heard Dobbs walk up to him. He glanced at the other officer. He looked pale and shaken.

"Don't play dumb with me," Dobbs muttered quietly. "I know you saw that. Probably got a good look at it, too."

Instead of answering, Greg calmly pulled the battered pack from his pocket. He offered it to Dobbs. When the other officer just stared at him blankly, he shrugged and wandered over to light his cigarette on what looked like a flaming fragment of tire. _Sod my lungs_, he thought._ I might not be needing them soon._ His brain was still frantically trying to process what he'd just seen, but he shut it up with the first glorious, transcendent, nicotine-drenched pull of his cigarette.

"So…What was it?" asked Dobbs.

Lestrade took a deep draw and shrugged. "Dunno," he said, "But it's got bloody good taste in music."


End file.
